#otherwise they're INCREDIBLY quiet. so much so that I've questioned whether there's actually anything there

[marzipanandminutiae]

As someone who owns a doll I have literally seen levitate, but yet have no desire to be rid of because I love her, I wholly subscribe to the theory that you just have to learn what enriches and soothes the spirit and just like… be respectful.

This doll started out it’s life very normally, just one of many my grandmother bought at a craft store because she crochets Victorian dresses for dolls.

It would move around my bed while I slept and it scared me so bad I threw it in my closet. Every night it was in the closet I would hear tapping sounds on the door from inside. It scared me so badly until one night I flung the sliding doors open and it dropped down from eye level while I watched. Hecking spooky, to borrow a phrase.

However, in the cold light of dawn the next day I folded up a scarf into a cushion and sat her upon it, with her hair neatly tucked under her hat and her purse resting around her wrist on her lap, onto a doll sized rocking chair I’d had since I was a baby. There was no more moving or tapping after that.

I’ve had her through four moves now, and as long as she is proudly displayed and has her hat and purse with her, she is so perfectly well behaved. I have even been able to pick her up and carry her around without fear as long as I don’t lose any of her things or try to hide her away.

She still terrifies most of my friends but hey. We vibe. It’s pretty cool. /ramble

And that's the thing of it, for me. Everyone assumes that you should immediately peace out of a haunted house, or ditch a haunted object in the nearest campfire. But these things can be staggeringly mundane IRL, and really no cause for alarm.

Most haunted buildings I've been in have like one or two minor things happen every three months or so. Sometimes the intervals are even longer. Most haunted objects I've found, like your doll, cause very few incidents. Plenty of ghosts are happy as clams if you simply acknowledge them, and will thereafter be pretty quiet.

Okay, so you've got a haunted doll. Can you work out what the doll wants and come to a mutually acceptable arrangement? Great! No need for torches and pitchforks. And now you have a ghost friend, which is always nice.

(That seems like a more likely scenario re: Robert the Doll, to me. As I said, that Ms. Reuter voluntarily kept him around for 20 years. Would she have done that if he were actually violent? Highly doubt it.)